Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Just About the Weather

I so don't miss the cold and the snow. Many a blog has mentioned the extreme cold and snow this year. People have been stuck without electricity and are sleeping in school gyms. Heathrow got a mere 8 inches but they're not used to it so they cancelled all the planes and folks are stuck sleeping in the airport. My hale and hardy mom who drove a bus till she was 78 is stuck in her tiny one bedroom apartment for active independent seniors sometimes for several days at a time. That area of Wisconsin has had schools closed on four separate days due to cold and snow. In my entire 17 years in Wisconsin we had only one day of school closed for snow. We spent it walking all over, sitting on top of telephone booths and so on. We must have done a good 5 miles that day. But I so don't miss it!


Over here we've had the mildest winter on record, or at least since I've been keeping record in my mind. It's barely gotten under 50 F. The flower bulbs I planted in November have already hatched. I haven't even gotten to wear my totally cool suede boots as it's too hot for that and I'm not some 18 year old or professional cheerleader who wears boots in summer, after all. The cat that I've been feeding since the kiddies promised me they would 10 years ago has not even put on any weight this winter.

Despite that, we're having the worse drought on record, or at least since I've been keeping record in my mind. Since we don't get any rain between April and November, we really need the bit that we do get 4 months of the year, but it seems to be boycotting us like obscure British trade unions and anarchists in Berkley. I've heard that scientists have found a way to squeeze water out of the air. It's not as big a deal as it sounds; the ancient Nabateans who lived in a turbo desert managed that by making mounds of pebbles that somehow trapped dew which was used for agriculture. Of course, the ancient Nabateans did not have water parks.

5 comments:

  1. We too have had a very mild winter where I live. Not much rain to speak of which means everything will be super dry for fire season and we'll have no water to put the fires out.

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  2. Did the ancient Nabateans buy water from Turkey?

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  3. PC - Some day there will be a way to make all that extra snow in Wisconsin beam over to the rest of us who need the meltwater.

    Z - They didn't need to, they had the pebble pyramids.

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  4. I had to look up Nabateans. You're making my brain hurt. I just want to relax when I'm reading blogs. ;) Oh, and btw, thanks for rubbing it in about the weather. Thanks a lot.

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  5. Unfinishedrambler - You'll get me back this summer when you'll have water and we won't.

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Any and all comments welcome...